None of these. The boy-sailor was acquainted with the cries of all three, and of many other sea-birds besides. It was not the call of a bird that had fallen so unexpectedly on his ear, but a note of far different intonation. It more resembled a voice—a human voice—the voice of a child! Not of a very young child—an infant—but more like that of a girl of eight or ten years of age!
Nor was it a cry of distress, though uttered in a melancholy tone. It seemed to the ear of the lad—freshly awakened from his sleep—like words spoken in conversation.
But it could not be what he had taken it for! Improbable—impossible! He had been deluded by a fancy; or it might be the mutterings of some ocean bird with whose note he was unacquainted.
Should he awake his companion and tell him of it? A pity, if it should prove to be nothing, or only the chattering of a sea-gull. His brave protector had need of rest. Ben would not be angry to be awaked; but the sailor would be sure to laugh at him if he were to say he had heard a little girl talking at that time of night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps Ben might say it was a mermaid, and mock him in that sort of style?
No: he would not run the risk of being ridiculed, even by his best of friends. Better let the thing pass, and say nothing about it.
Little William had arrived at this resolution, and had more than half determined to treat the sound he had heard as an aurical delusion. He had even replaced his cheek upon the sail-cloth pillow, when the very same sound again fill upon his ear—this time more distinctly heard, as if either the utterance had been clearer or the being that made it was nearer!
If it was not the voice of a girl—a very young girl—then the boy-sailor had never listened to the prattling of his younger sister, or the conversation of his little female playmates. If it was a young mermaid, then most assuredly could mermaids talk: for the sound was exactly like a string or series of words uttered in conversation!
Ben must be aroused from his slumber. It could not be an illusion. Either a talking mermaid, or a little girl, was within earshot of the raft.
There was no help for it: Ben must be aroused.
“Ben! Ben!”
“Ho—hah—ow—aw—what’s the row?—seven bells, I bean’t on the dog-watch. Hi, hi, oh! it’s you, little Will’m. What is’t, lad?”
“Ben, I hear something.”
“Hear somethin’! Well, what o’ that, boy? Theer ’s allers somethin’ to be heerd: even here, in the middle o’ the Atlantic. Ah! boy, I was dreamin’ a nice dream when ye woke me. I thought I war back on the ole frigate. ’T wa’nt so nice, eyther, for I thought the bos’n war roustin’ me up for my watch on deck. Anyhow, would a been better than this watch here. Heerd something ye say? What d’ye mean, little Will’m?”
“I heard a voice, Ben. I think it was a voice.”
“Voice—o’ a human, do ye mean?”
“It sounded like that of a little girl.”
“Voice o’ a little girl! Shiver my timbers, lad, you’re goin’ demented! Put yer face close to mine. Let me see ye, boy! Are ye in yer senses, Will’m?”
“I am, Ben. I’m sure I heard what I’ve said. Twice I heard it. The first time I wasn’t sure; but just now I heard it again, and if—”
“If there hadn’t been gulls, an’ boobies, an’ Mother Carey’s chickens, as squeals and chitters just like little childer, I’d a been puzzled at what ye be a tellin’ me; but as I knows there be all o’ these creators in the middle o’ the broad ocean—and mermaids too, I dare say—then, ye see, little Will’m, I must disbelieve that ye heard anything more than the voice of—a man, by—!”
As the sailor terminated his speech with this terrible emphasis, he started into an upright attitude, and listened with all his ears for another utterance of that harsh monotone that, borne upon the breeze and rising above the “sough” of the disturbed water, could easily be distinguished as the voice of a man.
“We’re lost, Will’m!” cried he, without waiting for a repetition of the sound; “we’re lost. It’s the voice of Le Gros. The big raft is a bearin’ down upon us wi’ them bloodthirsty cannibals we thought we’d got clear o’. It’s no use tryin’ to escape. Make up your mind to it, lad; we’ve got to die! we’ve got to die!”
Chapter Sixteen.
Other Waifs.
Had it been daylight, instead of a very dark night, Ben Brace and his youthful comrade would have been less alarmed by the voices that came up the wind. Daylight would have discovered to them an object, or rather collection of objects, which, instead of repelling, would have attracted them nearer.
It was not the great raft that was drifting to leeward, nor was it the voice of Le Gros or any of his wicked companions, that had been heard; though, in the excitement of their fears, that was the first thought of the two castaways.
Could their eyes have penetrated the deep obscurity that shrouded the sea, they would have beheld a number of objects, like themselves, adrift upon the water, and like them, at the mercy of the winds and waves. They would have seen pieces of timber, black and charred with fire; fragments of broken spars, with sails and cordage attached and trailing after them; here and there a cask or barrel, sunk to the level of the surface by the weight of its contents; pieces of packing-cases, torn asunder as if by some terrible explosion; cabin-chairs, coops, oars, handspikes, and other implements of the mariner’s calling—all bobbing about on the bosom of the blue deep, and carried hither and thither by the arbitrary oscillations of the breeze.
These various objects were not all huddled up together, but scattered unequally over a space of more than a square mile in extent. Had it been daylight, so that the sailor could have seen them, as they appeared mottling the bright surface of the sea, he would have experienced no difficulty in determining their character. At a glance he would have recognised the débris of the burnt ship, from which he and his companion had so narrowly escaped—the slave-bark Pandora.
He would have looked upon these objects with no very great surprise, but in all likelihood with a feeling of considerable satisfaction: as offering the means for recruiting the strength of his own slight embarkation, which was barely sufficient to sustain the weight of himself and his companion, and certainly not strong enough to withstand the assault of the most moderate of storms.
In the midst of the “waifs” above enumerated, however, there was one not yet named—one that differed greatly from all the rest—and which, had it been seen by them, would have caused extreme surprise both to Ben Brace and little William.
It was a raft, not a great deal larger than their own, but altogether of different construction. A number of planks most of them charred by fire, with a sofa, a bamboo chair, and some other articles of furniture, had been rudely bound together by ropes. These things, of themselves, would have made but a very clumsy craft, no better for navigating the great ocean than that upon which Ben and the boy were themselves embarked. But the buoyancy of the former was secured by a contrivance of which the sailor had not had the opportunity of availing himself. Around its edge were ranged hogsheads or water-casks, evidently empty. They were lashed to the plank; and being bunged up against the influx of the water, kept the whole structure afloat, so that it would have carried a ton or two without sinking below the surface.
There was a smaller cask floating alongside, attached to the timbers by a piece of rope that was tightly looped around the swell. But this could not have been designed to increase the buoyancy of the raft: since it was itself almost submerged, evidently by the weight of something it contained.
Such